The Fellowship of Lifea Christian-based vegetarian group founded in 1973

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Letters - By J. M. Gilheany

Wales on Sunday letter (untitled)

THE national media recently reported the Crown Court case of a young
model who was beaten up, raped and eventually disfigured with acid by a
man whom she met via Facebook.

There are certainly all too frequent, if relatively rare, examples of
the depths to which our species is capable of descending and “justice”
often seems a strained description of expensive imprisonment within the
stern safeguards of human rights legislation.

Meanwhile, we experiment on millions of entirely innocent laboratory
animals every year, in vicious “procedures” which “Pro-Test” was formed
to gloss over with supposedly scientific propaganda (WoS, May 3).

The public seems to be particularly susceptible to the notion that
animal life should be sacrificed on a vast scale in research which may
or may not lead to cures for human illnesses but which certainly
involves the infliction of real suffering.

Yet where is the celebrated consistency of the pro-vivisection lobby,
who should surely realise that millions of humans will inevitably die in
the decades ahead while scientists make do with animal subjects of
experimentation, obtaining results which are often entirely misleading
on those hallowed medical grounds?

The scientific community fully realise, but cannot utter the awful
truth, that “incurable” diseases might well have been consigned to
history by now had the likes of Ian Brady been the victims of their
research rather than animals whose rights are infinitely less respected.

A civilised society must of course refuse to resort to hi-tech
barbarism, however tempting the potential for ill-gotten gains may
appear to be at times.

It seems therefore, that it is not animal liberationists who should
be considered “irrational” but those who invoke “the monkey or your
child” scenario rather than “the paedo or the next generation of
children” – which would doubtless be a more truthful, if perhaps less
popular, vivisectionists’ vote-winner.